Mr. DULLES. I am interested as an old Foreign Service officer.
Mr. SNYDER. I see. I served for a brief time in HICOG in Frankfurt,
Germany and then for about 2 years in Munich, in the consulate general,
which was my first post in the Foreign Service.
My second post, I spent 1 year in the boondocks of Japan, in Niigata,
on the Sea of Japan, in a one-man cultural center.
Mr. DULLES. As a Foreign Service officer?
Mr. SNYDER. As a Foreign Service officer; yes, sir. I was assigned to
this duty at a time when USIS was still part of the State Department,
and when I reached my post it had already been separated, so I was on
loan to them. And then a year and a half in Tokyo. Then a summer and
an academic year at Harvard, in Russian area studies.
Mr. DULLES. In what school there?
Mr. SNYDER. In Littauer.
Mr. DULLES. Did you learn Russian at that time?
Mr. SNYDER. No; I had had Russian in college before.
Mr. DULLES. So you speak Russian fairly fluently?
Mr. SNYDER. Fairly fluently; yes, sir.
Mr. DULLES. And then Moscow was your next post?
Mr. SNYDER. And then Moscow for 2 years; yes, sir.
Mr. DULLES. What 2 years?
Mr. SNYDER. July of 1959 to July of 1961. I arrived there just before
the Vice President.
Mr. COLEMAN. Directing your attention, sir, to October 31, 1959, did
you have occasion to see Lee Harvey Oswald on that day?
Mr. SNYDER. Yes, sir.
Mr. COLEMAN. Had you ever seen him before?
Mr. SNYDER. No, sir.
(At this point, Representative Ford entered the hearing room.)
Mr. COLEMAN. Had you ever heard about him before?
Mr. SNYDER. No.
Mr. COLEMAN. Could you state for the Commission just what happened when
you saw Mr. Oswald on October 31. 1959, indicating the time of day,
what he said, and what you did?
The CHAIRMAN. Before you answer that question, may I say that this is
Congressman Ford, a member of the Commission.
This is Mr. Snyder of the State Department now stationed in Tokyo, and
who was stationed at the Embassy in Moscow when Oswald attempted to
defect.
Representative FORD. Thank you.
Mr. SNYDER. Well, as for the time of day, I am afraid I draw a blank.
I can make some assumptions as to the time of day, for what they are
worth.
But since I told Oswald--and you will come to this, I think, a little
later on--that the Embassy was closed theoretically at the time, I
presume this was a Wednesday afternoon or perhaps a Saturday afternoon,
but I just don't recall.
Mr. COLEMAN. For the record, I think it was a Saturday, sir.
Mr. SNYDER. Was it a Saturday?
So, at any rate--if it had been a morning, I could not have used this
particular approach with him. So I presume it was an afternoon.
Oswald came into the Embassy without prior announcement. He didn't call
or in any other way communicate with us, to the best of my knowledge.
Mr. DULLES. You had no way of knowing he was in Russia?
Mr. SNYDER. I had no previous knowledge of his presence; no, sir.
At any rate, he came in to me cold, so to speak. I was told that an
American wanted to see me, wanted to see the consul. And I am not sure
whether I went out and brought him in or whether he was taken into my
office by someone else. At any rate, this was my first meeting with
Oswald.
I will be glad to give you such recollections as I have as to his
general demeanor and this sort of thing, if you would like.
Mr. COLEMAN. Yes, sir.
Mr. SNYDER. And I might inject at this point something which I
mentioned to Mr. Slawson before our session began, and that is that
I reviewed the files, our own files, on Oswald, enough to refresh my
memory as to the basic facts and the chronology of events and this sort
of thing, but I have attempted not to go too deeply into details with
the thought that what the Commission is interested in, presumably, is
what I honestly remember at the time and not so much what may have been
planted in my mind by reviews since that time.
As to his general appearance, I do recall that he was neatly and very
presentably dressed. I couldn't say offhand whether he was dressed
in a suit and shirt, though I think probably he was. At any rate, he
presented a nice physical appearance.
I presume that he was well shaven. Otherwise, I would not have had this
feeling about him--that he, in general, was competent looking.
He was extremely sure of himself. He seemed to know what his mission
was. He took charge, in a sense, of the conversation right from the
beginning. He told me in effect that he was there to give up his
American citizenship. I believe he put his passport on my desk, but
I am not sure. I may have asked for it. In general, his attitude was
quite arrogant.
Mr. DULLES. Could I ask one question there? When you say you presume
you asked for it, you mean you asked to see it--you didn't ask to take
it from him?
Mr. SNYDER. No, I asked to see it. If he didn't put it on the desk,
then I asked for it early in the game--one way or the other.
He told me, among other things, that he had come to the Soviet Union
to live, that he did not intend to go back to the United States, that
this was a well thought out idea on his part. He said, again in effect,
"Don't bother wasting my time asking me questions or trying to talk me
out of my position."
He said, "I am well aware"--either he said, "I am well aware" or "I
have been told exactly the kind of thing you will ask me, and I am not
interested, so let's get down to business"--words to that effect.
Well, he was a very cocksure young man at that time.
I am not sure that he sat at all throughout the interview, but
certainly in the early part of it he did not.
I asked him--I recall asking him to take a seat, and he said, no, he
wanted to stand. He may have relented later on.
At any rate, I did nevertheless probe about and elicited a bit of
information about him which was in my report to the Department of State.
Mr. COLEMAN. Sir, was anyone else present at the time you were talking
to Mr. Oswald?
Mr. SNYDER. No; I believe Mr. McVickar was in the next room. But there
was no one in the room with us at that time.
Mr. COLEMAN. How long did the interview with Mr. Oswald last,
approximately?
Mr. SNYDER. Well, I would have to pull it out of the air, really. It
would be on the order of magnitude of half an hour. It might have
extended to three-quarters of an hour, something of this sort.
Mr. COLEMAN. Other than the passport, did he give you any other piece
of paper?
Mr. SNYDER. Yes, yes; he did. He gave me a written statement saying
something along the line of what I have said he mentioned to me orally.
That is, that he had come to the Soviet Union to live, that he desired
to renounce his citizenship, that he was going to become a citizen of
the Soviet Union, words to that effect.
Mr. DULLES. We have that written statement, do we not?
Mr. COLEMAN. I have marked as Commission Exhibit No. 913 a photostatic
copy of a handwritten letter which is signed by Lee H. Oswald, and
ask you whether that is a copy of the letter that Oswald gave you on
October 31, when he appeared at the Embassy?
(The document referred to was marked Commission Exhibit No. 913 for
identification.)
Mr. SNYDER. Yes; I would say it is, sir.
Mr. COLEMAN. After he gave you the letter and the passport, did he do
anything else?
Mr. SNYDER. No; after his initial statement of purpose and intent, and
after giving me this statement, the interview was then pretty much in
my hands. He was, I would say, a reluctant interviewee from there on.
He had announced initially his desire not to discuss the matter with
me, but simply to get on with the business for which he had come and,
therefore, anything else that was to be said was up to me to get said.
Mr. COLEMAN. Did you at that time go through whatever formalities are
required for a person to renounce his citizenship?
Mr. SNYDER. No; I did not.
Mr. COLEMAN. What does an American citizen have to do at the Embassy to
renounce his citizenship?
Mr. SNYDER. Well, the law requires, in general, that an American
citizen, to renounce his citizenship, must appear before--I am not
sure whether the law confines it to a consular officer--but at any
rate must appear, in the case of the Foreign Service, appear before
a consular officer, and swear to an affidavit in the proper form,
something of this order. In practical terms, it means that the consul
draws up a statement, the content of which--the exact wording of which
is contained in our regulations, and has the person swear to it in his
presence.
Mr. COLEMAN. Well, did Mr. Oswald ask for such an affidavit?
Mr. SNYDER. I don't think he asked for such an affidavit in those
terms. I am not sure that he understood that completely, what the
procedure was. But he did ask to renounce his citizenship.
Mr. COLEMAN. Well, did you provide him with the affidavit?
Mr. SNYDER. No, sir; I did not.
Mr. COLEMAN. Why didn't you provide him with the affidavit at that time?
Mr. SNYDER. Well, as the consul and, of course, the responsible person
at the time, it didn't seem to me the sensible thing to do--in the
sense that--I can't, I suppose, speak for all consuls, but it is sort
of axiomatic, I think, in the consular service that when a man, a
citizen comes in and asks to renounce his citizenship, you don't whip
out a piece of paper and have him sign it. This is a very serious step,
of course, an irrevocable step, really, and if nothing else you attempt
to provide enough time for--to make sure that the person knows what
he is doing. You explain, for one thing, what the meaning of the act
is; and, secondly, again speaking for myself--I cannot speak for the
Foreign Service in this--provide a little breather, if possible make
the man leave your office and come back to it at a later time, just
to make sure--for what value there is in making sure--that the man's
action is not something completely off the top of his head.
Representative FORD. Mr. Chairman, would it be helpful for the record
to have put in the record at this point whatever the law is in this
regard, and whatever the Department regulations are on this point?
The CHAIRMAN. That may be done; yes.
Mr. COLEMAN. I would like to say, sir, at 2 o'clock the Legal Adviser
to the State Department is coming in, and he is going to put it in at
that time.
Mr. DULLES. May I ask a question at this point?
Mr. COLEMAN. If you want it in now, we can indicate the sections which
are applicable.
Representative FORD. I think there ought to be some citation at this
point, because the witness is talking specifically about the process of
the law and the regulations.
The CHAIRMAN. Do you have the law there, Mr. Snyder--is that the law?
Mr. SNYDER. I brought nothing with me, myself.
The CHAIRMAN. I saw a book there that you were looking at, and I
thought that would suffice.
Mr. SNYDER. Shall I read the section of law, sir?
This is the Immigration and Nationality Act, section 349(a)(6).
Section 349(a) states, "From and after the effective date of this Act,
a person who is a national of the United States, whether by birth or
naturalization, shall lose his nationality by"--then section 6 under
that, subsection, states, "making a formal renunciation of nationality
before a diplomatic or consular officer of the United States in a
foreign state in such form as may be prescribed by the Secretary of
State."
Mr. COLEMAN. Sir, the Secretary of State has promulgated regulations
which are found in 22 Code of Federal Regulations, sections 50.1 and
50.2 and they are also reproduced in 8 Foreign Affairs Manual, section
225.6.
Basically, as I understand it, those regulations provide the form in
which the citizen is to make the renunciation, and it is to be done in
four copies, and then one copy is to be given to the person who makes
the renunciation. Is that your understanding?
Mr. SNYDER. This is my understanding; yes, sir.
Representative FORD. Are those forms available? Are they printed up, or
do you have to draft them? What is the circumstance?
Mr. SNYDER. They are not printed forms, to my knowledge, Mr. Ford--at
least I have never seen a printed form. The only time that I have used
them in my Foreign Service experience I have had them typed up on the
spot.
The CHAIRMAN. You may continue, Mr. Coleman.
Mr. DULLES. We ought to have in the record, Mr. Chief Justice, a copy
of that form--either here or later.
The CHAIRMAN. As I understood, someone from the State Department is
coming here to testify on the procedures, and the witness did not bring
anything with him, he says.
Mr. SNYDER. That is right, sir.
Mr. COLEMAN. Mr. Snyder, when you were talking to Mr. Oswald on October
31, 1959, did he say anything with respect to applying for Soviet
citizenship?
Mr. SNYDER. Yes; this was contained in his written statement, for one
thing, and I believe that he also stated this to me orally.
Mr. COLEMAN. Did he say anything with respect to having any information
since he had been in the Marine Corps that he would be willing to make
available to the Soviet Union?
Mr. SNYDER. Yes; he did. He stated again, in effect, that he would make
available to the Soviet authorities or to the Soviet Union what he had
learned concerning his speciality--he was an electronics specialist of
some sort, a radar technician--at any rate, he would make available to
the Soviet Union such knowledge as he had acquired while in the Marine
Corps concerning his specialty.
He volunteered this statement. It was rather peculiar.
Mr. COLEMAN. You say that the interview lasted about a half an hour. I
take it he then left. Did he say he was going to return?
Mr. SNYDER. No; I don't believe he did. He gave no particular
indication of when he would return, if he would return, or this sort of
thing.
Mr. COLEMAN. Do you recall just what he said when he left your office?
Mr. SNYDER. No, sir.